Naturally Occurring Phenomenon
by Ash Road
Summary: "I don't want to flood the world." Leah is a very broken person. That's okay. So is Jacob.  Jacob/Leah, mentions of Sam/Leah, Jacob/Bella, Renesmee. Complete.


Title: Naturally Occurring Phenomenon  
Pairing: Jacob/Leah, mentions of Sam/Leah, Jacob/Bella, Renesmee  
Rating: M  
Length: 3,506 words  
Status: Complete  
Notes: Written in response to Breaking Dawn, because I really could not stand how SMeyer ended things. Started right after the book came out, finished up only recently. Thoughts and concrit, anyone? This is very much an experiment in style, so I would love to get some feedback on it! Enjoy.

* * *

Naturally Occurring Phenomenon

She compares them to a bolt of lightning, a flash fire. _Dangerous, _she whispers. _Hot and sudden and quick-burning. Deadly._

_Deadly?_ His voice deepens on the syllables of the word and a slow grin spreads across his lips.

_Absolutely lethal._

His mouth is on hers, raging and intense before she has a chance to say anything else.

xxx

She traces hearts over the one beating erratically in his chest, her fingers lazy on his skin. He lays still, lets her draw aimless designs and spell out things that neither of them can find the voice to say. Eventually she sighs and slips into sleep, hand stilling, splayed across the organ that will kill them both in the end.

When he wakes in the morning, after Leah is gone, his head muzzy from sleep and the memory of her body against his, he can still feel the pressure of her touch, her handprint like a brand across his heart.

xxx

Leah is a very broken person.

That's okay.

So is Jacob.

xxx

She is a collage of jagged edges and sharp corners. He doesn't have to slip into her mind as they run through the wilds of the forest to know that something in her shattered irreparably when Sam– well, when Sam slotted Emily into a space that had once been Leah's. He knows that if he asked her to pick up the pieces, she'd come up with fewer than when she started. There's a part of her that's gonegonegone, and never coming back.

He knows what that's like, and so he doesn't begrudge her all that bitterness, all that anger.

He's still trying to pick up the pieces of his own life. They both have their own reasons for letting the wolf take over when they run, and in the quiet they can only hear the huff of wolf breathing, and the soft pad of wolf paws on the forest floor.

xxx

Leah likes to wax philosophical. She likes to rail about old literature, and fallen empires, and ancient pantheons. Those who think they have seen Leah at her sharpest, her most embittered, have never seen her drunk on stolen hooch and muttering viciously to herself.

Jacob has. He has seen her strip skin from bone with nothing but her words, all her barbs directed inward. Leah like this is fueled by a bitter anger he can recognize but never really make sense of.

Leah is like this tonight, as they sit on the back porch, taking turns with the bottle of Jack he lifted from the Cullen's. She's smoking a cigarette and murmuring quietly to herself, whispered diatribes about old poets and philosophers.

He moves off the concrete and lies back in the damp grass, staring at the press of the low-hanging gray cloud cover. Her whispers quiet, and he wants to say something, but all he can think of is Renesmee, and she won't like that. He thinks he might say it anyway.

_Renesmee,_ he says. The word is slick and bitter on his tongue.

_Yeah,_ she says back to him, _I know._

When the whiskey is gone, she stands slowly, her joints creaking. She holds the neck of the bottle loosely in one hand, lets her fingers uncurl and drop her half-finished cigarette from the other hand onto the broken concrete of the porch.

Ash flutters down in its wake.

_I don't want to be Niobe,_ she tells him. _I don't want to flood the world._

He doesn't understand, but then, it's Leah. That's all that matters. He takes her outstretched hand, and walks with her.

_I want to see the ocean._ He nods. _I want to see the sum of my tears._

The sand is cold beneath their feet, and she stands against the oncoming waves like a rock, sharp and jagged but wearing smooth. She stays like that for a moment, then dips her hand into the water. She paints saltwater trails on his cheeks, and kisses him.

Her hands claw at his back, desperate, and he responds in kind. His world is filled with Leah, and the scent of her skin, the ash and whiskey on her breath, the heat pooling between her legs as he presses his hand against the crotch of her worn jeans.

She strips their clothes off with strong slim fingers, papery fabric of hand-me-downs and thrift store finds yielding easily at her touch. She stumbles a little as she pulls off her jeans, her foot caught, wolf reflexes dulled under the haze of alcohol and the rush of desire he can smell on her. It's a momentary distraction, and then she is pushing him down against the sand, crawling across his body to straddle his hips. The slender bronze column of her neck captivates him as she throws back her head, exultant.

He bucks into her and thinks maybe he's forgotten how to breathe, until she rolls her hips and all thought is driven from his mind in a wave of _yes,_ and _faster,_ and _Leah._

She holds his face to her chest when they are done, and he can hear the beating of her heart. He brushes his lips across the spot, and her breathing hitches in a stifled sob. He pretends not to notice.

The saltwater has dried on his cheeks, and his chest is tight like he's been crying. They walk back to the Clearwater house, smoke trailing behind them as Leah lights another cigarette. Her breathing is strange and rattling, like something in her chest is broken. He snatches the cigarette away from her, and she watches him grind the glowing ember into the sand with dispassionate eyes.

She is fiercely beautiful, like this.

Her clothes are sandy and her hair a mess, but her stride is smooth as she turns her back to cross the porch and slip inside.

xxx

There's too much space, too much light in the Cullen house. It feels fake, engineered to make up for the lack of heartbeats and heat.

She's sitting on the couch, listening to something Jasper's saying. He's close enough that he could hear if he wanted to, but he doesn't. All he wants right now is to be on the reservation, listening to the rhythmic crash of the ocean on the land.

Renesmee laughs her high laugh, earns a wince from Jacob. The sound is harsh, jarring, like the ringing of a cracked bell. No one else seems to notice.

She leaps up off the couch, runs to where Jacob is leaning against the doorframe. She laughs again, grabs his hand, pulls him out to the yard

Later, after Renesmee has played in the vibrant fall of autumn leaves, red gold orange remnants of a dead spring, Bella joins them.

_Nessie,_ she calls, her voice pitched a shade too loud, _why don't you come inside, honey?_

_But I'm playing outside with my Jacob!_ Renesmee calls the words out across the lawn.

There's a flash of something like jealousy across Bella's too-perfect face, but then she steps out of the shadows gathering on the porch, and it's gone, lost in the high shine of her new diamond skin.

It's blinding, flashing like white phosphorus, but it's a cold and empty burn. It leaves him blinking, an afterimage seared on his eyelids and a disconcerting lack of heat.

It feels all wrong.

He leaves after that, phasing and running before they can force him to stay for another dinner that only he will eat.

xxx

He shaves his head that same week. Thick black hanks of hair cover the cheap linoleum of the bathroom floor when he's done, but he can't bring himself to care.

Jacob goes running, and for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, his strides are effortless, raw and free and uninhibited, a heaviness gone from his back.

The old growth forests of the Olympic Peninsula are dense, thick with secrets and mist. There's a history hidden in the trees and the earth here. They hum and throb with power, a current that flows into him as he pounds his way across the forest floor, his lungs filling with the scent of cool pine, damp moss, and the tang of salt from the dark waters of Puget Sound.

Something in the back of his mind, something perceived and understood by the wolf, tells him everything is changing.

He doubles back after another three miles, heading for home, heading for Leah, with electricity crackling in his veins.

xxx

It's taken him nearly a year, eleven months of running in circles and remembering how to make his heart beat for himself, not for Renesmee, not for Bella, not for Leah, but for Jacob.

Jacob Black, alpha werewolf. Quileute. Jacob Black. Jacob Black. _Jacob Black._

He says his name over and over again, standing at the edge of the ocean on First Beach, the chill gray water trying to steal away the heat of the inferno raging inside his skin. Jacob Black. Jacob Black. Maybe it's the saltwater that helps him wear away at the steel cables tethering him to Renesmee, corroding them until they snap like strings when he pulls. Maybe it's the feel of Leah's skin, the same temperature as his own. Or maybe it's the sight of Billy, pride in his gaze when he sees Jacob leading the pack.

Whatever it is, slowly, slowly, he's teaching himself what he once knew instinctively, how to live for himself. For Jacob Black.

He's remembering who he is.

xxx

Edward's eyes darken to a furious black, his lips drawn back in a silent snarl, when Jacob walks into the Cullen house. It's still artificially light, a crude imitation of living heat and beating hearts.

He knows. He's plucked the thoughts out of Jacob's brain, intruding the way he always does. Jacob doesn't mind, this time. It makes things a little bit easier; Edward can read the truth of his thoughts, the sincerity and strength of his decision. There is no doubt, not anymore.

He's made his choice.

xxx

Renesmee doesn't understand. He doesn't expect her to. She's grown up on tales of pure and unending perfect love. She does not know what it means to sacrifice, and never will, so long as she lives in the sheltered world of her parent's fairytale happy ending.

He hugs her once, and then settles back on his haunches so he can look her in the eye.

_Renesmee,_ he tells her, hoping the use of her full name will make her listen the way he wants her to, needs her to listen to what he has to say. _I'm going. And I know you don't understand why, but I'm not coming back. It's not because I don't love you. That's not true. I will never not love you. But I can't stay with you. I have to live for myself, now._

She stares at him with a gravity no seven year-old should possess.

_You be wild, okay. I want you to snarl, and fight, and live. I want you to bare your teeth at the world and remember that you are a wild thing. Don't ever forget that. Never, never, forget that. _

He stands then, and phases, running for the trees cloaked in the fur of a red wolf, fierce and untamed.

He's already at the treeline when she says it, but he hears her all the same.

_Goodbye, my Jacob._

xxx_  
_

Bella wants to talk to him, after. She follows him, raging, through the forest, a blur of too-pale skin and long brown hair. He wants to balk, wants to tell her to go screw herself, but the part of him that remembers Bells, not Isabella Cullen, insists that he make this one last concession. So he stops, and sheds his wolf skin.

_I don't understand why you're doing this to me,_ she shrills. A flock of birds takes off in flight, alarmed by the cry of what they recognize as a predator.

_Bella,_ he starts, but it sounds wrong. His tongue still wants to say _Bells,_ to shape her name into a familiar sound, in the hopes that it will bring back something of the girl he once knew.

It won't.

He tries again. _Bella, this isn't about you. This is about Renesmee. This is about me. You don't get a say in what I do._

He supposes she can see the truth of his words, written in the set of his jaw, the lines on his brow. She tries another track.

_Nessie is your whole world! She's your imprint – you shouldn't make her choose between you and her family! You're supposed to do what's best for her!_

And that, right there, is the heart of it. Bella did not shed her blindness when she shed her humanity. Constant attention is not going to help Renesmee mature, grow beyond the shell of pretty little mutant. It will only smother her, leave her pampered and sheltered until she is nothing more than the sum of her family's expectations. She will never be her own person.

_How is she going to learn if she's never allowed to make a mistake? She needs the chance to fail. And she's never going to get that chance if I'm yoked to her. _

She's staring at him as if she can't understand what he's saying. _Jake, this isn't– you can't– _

He interrupts her, cuts off her stuttering with a question. _Do you know how baby birds learn to fly?_ She shakes her head, mute. _Their mothers push them out of the nest. They either figure it out and catch the wind, or they die. But whatever happens, it's up to them. They fly or they die, and no one else is responsible. _

Bella almost stomps her foot, and he can see the echoes of Bella-the-girl, not the vampire that stands before him, sickly sweet stench burning in his lungs. The motion is jerky, aborted mid-stamp.

_So you want to take away everything she's ever known? You can't do this to her Jake. You can't do this to her or to me. _

He stands silent, waiting.

_What's happened to you, Jake? What made you so cruel? You didn't used to be like this. You're my Jake, my best friend. You're my sun. You can't leave me like this. It's not fair. _

She won't meet his gaze, her arms crossed like a petulant child.

He puts his hands on her shoulders, and squeezes gently until she looks at him. He's only going to say this once.

_Bella, nothing is fair. And I'm not "your" sun. I'm just me. You don't own me. You don't have a claim on me. And I know you're not going to understand this, but not everyone gets a fairytale happy ending. Some people need to sacrifice._

Her face tightens, angry, but he doesn't let her speak. His voice is as gentle as he can make it.

_You had your choice, Bella. And you didn't choose me. You can't take it back, and you can't have it both ways. _

He wraps her in a brief hug, in remembrance of the girl he once knew.

_Bye Bella. Tell Renesmee I'll miss her. _

And like that, he is gone, running wolf back towards the reservation. Running home.

xxx

He tells Leah, and she doesn't believe him. She screams at him, tells him to leave, starts throwing things at him when he refuses.

_Get out, get out of my house! Get out, get out, GET OUT!_ Her shouts run together, slurring into one long string of words, her low voice harsh and jarring in the small room. _Get out get out getoutgetoutgetoutgetout!_

_Leah,_ he tries, _Leah, please listen to me! Leah!_ She throws a potted plant at him, and it shatters in a spray of dirt and ceramic against the wall behind him when he ducks.

He won't be an alpha in this. He doesn't want to pull rank on her, make her listen the way he knows he can, he just won't. He wants to talk this out, not Alpha to Beta, but Jacob to Leah. He doesn't want this. He doesn't want to hurt her.

_What the hell is this Leah? Why are you afraid of what I'm saying? I thought you were fearless. _

_Well you were wrong,_ she screams. _I am afraid! I can't be someone's reject again, Jacob. I won't be the person you throw away because you found perfect true everlasting love with someone else. I'm afraid, and I don't want to hear promises I know you'll break. So just leave, okay, just leave. Just get out of here!_

_Leah,_ he tries again. She hurls a cast iron pan at his head, and he knows she's not going to listen to him. He slams the back door when he leaves, a heavy ache settling in his chest.

Behind him, he can hear Leah sink down to the floor, crying.

Leaves crunch underfoot, and the clouds are low and steely gray. The metallic scent of ozone lingers in the air, sharp and weighing heavy on his tongue as he breathes. There's a storm coming. He can't find the energy to phase.

He walks the three miles back to his house on foot.

xxx

She leans against the door he just walked through, her back against the rough wood as she slides down to the floor. The wood catches on her shirt, leaves splinters in her hair. The world in front of her is blurred with tears, and this is not happening.

_I broke the imprint,_ he said, his voice strong and his eyes clear. _I'm not tied to her anymore._

She never wanted this, she thinks, and remembers the feel of his jaw cracking beneath the sharp power of her fist. She remembers his shock, the hurt flickering across the strong planes of his face, the downward curve of the lips she has kissed, the way the hands that have mapped the geography of her body curled into fists.

And it's true. She never wanted this.

She doesn't want to be the cause of wrecked lives, doesn't want to trust her heart to another person so soon after Sam. She doesn't want to be so many things that she has already been. Bitter, angry Leah. She doesn't want to be the reject again; she doesn't know if she can survive it twice.

She's scared out of her mind, scared of what this might mean, if he's right, and the aching chill she knows will settle in her bones if he is wrong.

She cries, sobs choking her throat and shaking her shoulders as they force their way free. She is crying on the floor of her kitchen, splinters in her hair and tears falling in a torrent against her skin.

_I don't want to be Niobe._ The thought rises, unbidden, a memory from that night on the beach with Jacob, a tangled mess of hurt and metaphors and the feel of his body against hers. _I don't want to flood the world._

She stops crying then, holding back the sobs that continue to build in her chest, swiping at the tears on her cheeks with an old dishrag.

He has not phased; she knows this in her bones, knows that if he was wearing wolf skin she would feel the pull of her own wolf, the fierce hunter that lives in the shadowed wilds of her soul, as surely as the moon pulls out the tides.

She stops crying, but the wolf in her feels the echo of loss, the emptiness in the hollow that Jacob has carved in her heart, and keens, an unearthly howl of pain that only Leah can hear.

xxx

It's only after he wakes her up in the middle of the night, fingers insistent against her skin, husky voice stumbling over a litany of _sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry_ that she remembers she'd given him a key.

xxx

Forgiveness doesn't come with a debt.

Her fingers twined with his are more than enough.

xxx

There are no steel cables tethering Jacob to Leah.

They have loved and lost and fought and raged against the world, and each other. No, what they have forged between them is real, like the creeping, thrusting green of growing things, the cycle of the seasons, winter into spring into summer into fall. Natural as the breath in their lungs.

The spread of his palm across the valley of her hips is heavy, the scrape of her nails down the planes of his back a reminder that they both can bleed. The slide of her skin on his is burning, slick with the intensity of lightning and the heat of a flash fire. He is Alpha and she is Beta, and they fill the cracks in each other that others have left in them. Between them, they have come up with enough pieces to make a whole.

He is Jacob and she is Leah, and they have no need of forever.

* * *

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